When corporate taxes are cut, that’s not all that’s on the chopping block.

Trickle-down economics rest on the assumption that if the rich are doing well, we’re all doing well. Bosses give us jobs and pay us; if we scratch their backs, they’ll scratch ours. Right?

Not so much.

Nevertheless, this is the idea behind Jason Kenney’s “Job Creation Tax Cut,” which will come into effect under Bill 3. The Bill was tabled on May 28, six days after the newly elected party’s throne speech, and is awaiting royal assent.

Now, with the reality of an eight-per-cent corporate tax (dropped from twelve over four years) looming, Albertans are wondering how this will impact them. And research shows that contrary to Kenney’s suggestions, Albertans won’t just be left out of the wealth these tax cuts land employers, but they’d pay for it too, in more ways than one, putting us all in yet another pickle…or three.

Trickle-Down Pickle #1: If the UCP cared about creating jobs, they wouldn’t find every excuse to rollback public spending.

The UCP have sounded the alarm – we’re in deeper debt than we thought.

The reality is, the most up-to-date information shows Alberta’s net debt as a percentage of its GDP is one of the lowest in Canada. What’s actually alarming though? Despite Kenney’s budget-balancing crusade (and the fear-mongering he’s used to galvanize it), the UCP have continued to dole out initiatives that will cut the province off from billions of dollars of revenue.

Corporate tax cuts alone will mean $3.7 billion* less for the public purse. This on top of freezes to oil royalties, suggest Kenney’s not too concerned about bringing money in to pay down the debt he’s claimed to wage war against.

Instead, his attack is focused squarely on public spending. The UCP have gone from claiming they would freeze public spending to setting up a “blue-ribbon panel” to review the provincial budget and almost certainly recommend cuts.

According to one report, even if the UCP cut $7 billion from public service funds over four years, debt would linger because of the domino effect cuts have on the economy, and its workers who’ll get hit the hardest. *

$7 billion in public spending cuts would be equivalent to about 27,700 public sector jobs and 30,600 private sector jobs axed over the next four years.* Attrition will mean a loss of valuable, specialized job knowledge while layoffs will leave families, dependents and single people with a financial headache.

In other cases, workers could see freezes and rollbacks on wages. Bill 9, which will delay and possibly renege the wage arbitrations government, Alberta Health Services, Boards and Agencies, and Education members (along with other workers) negotiated into their legally-binding contracts, could represent the first step in this direction.

Our neighbours to the south have been living with their own version of Bill 3 since January 2018, when the US President slashed corporate taxes. Republicans said this would boost job growth, but data from the Bureau of Labour Statistics shows that the difference between unemployment rates in April 2018 and April 2019 is a measly point 3.

The bottom line is Bill 3 doesn’t require businesses to hire more staff, and when politicians give their profiteering pals the option to pocket more money, they probably will.

Trickle-Down Pickle #2: Workers are hit twice

While Corporate Canada will see a drop in their taxes under Bill 3, Alberta’s personal income tax is not slated to change, meaning the working class will pitch in what they always have to the public purse.

Only now, with Bill 3 on the table, there’s a chance they’ll get less for their contributions as public programs (anything from home-care and wetland protection to education and affordable housing is a possibility) are zapped of funding and frontline resources.

Well, everyday Albertans do, because all of these plans put them at risk of paying high out-of-pocket payments for important public services that should never depend on one’s income. Whether it’s paying more for their kids’ schoolbooks or dishing out cash for blood work, Bill 3 will face workers with more expenses than before…and remember, that’s after taxes.

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in power, he famously slashed federal business taxes to the lowest rates in recent history, operating under the same job-creation pretence as Kenney.

The mask slipped when it was discovered that at the same time, Canadian corporations were sending more money than ever to the world’s top ten tax havens.

Foreign investments and inactive shell companies are where Canada’s richest want their profits to go – it doesn’t matter that taxes are low at home. If hoarding money elsewhere or profiting off the backs of workers beyond borders can boost a boss’s bottom-line and their shareholders’ returns, they’ll probably do that before they invest in services at home.

No matter how you slice it, Bill 3 is a failed experiment with trickle-down economics: it may work for the few at the top, but it puts the rest of us, and our provinces’ economy in quite the pickle.

*Numbers taken from the Alberta Federation of Labour’s report, “The Employment Impact of Election Promises: Analysis of budgetary scenarios of UCP and NDP platforms.”